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THE MOST 
INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 



BY 



JUUAN STREET 




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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE 

MOST INTERESTING 

AMERICAN 




(g) Pirie MacDonald 



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THE 

MOST INTERESTING 

AMERICAN 



BY 

JULIAN STREET 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1915 



...39 z 



Copyright, 1915, by 
The Century Co. 



Copyright, 1915, by 
P. F. Collier & Son, Incorporated 

> t • 
Published, December, 1915 



DEC 221315 









THE MOST INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 



THE MOST INTERESTING 
AMERICAN 

AS a child I remember waiting ea- 
gerly in the window of our house 
to catch a first glimpse of an uncle I 
had never seen, but who was the hero of 
m}^ dreams, an army officer who had 
fought the Indians. When I had 
waited half the afternoon a man came 
up our steps and rang the bell. He 
wore a dark overcoat and a derby hat, 
and since I was looking for a man wear- 
ing a uniform and sword I paid shght 
heed to him. But presently he came 
into the room, and I learned that, 
after all, this was my soldier uncle. To 
this day I remember the shock of that 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

disappointment. I do not remember 
what he looked hke; only what he did 
not look like: that he didn't look like 
my idea of an army officer ; that he was 
nothing to show off to the other boys. 

When, a short time since, I first met 
Colonel Roosevelt, I felt a slight re- 
currence of this disappointment. I 
cannot pretend that I expected him to 
be attired in the khaki of the cavalry 
or to be heavily armed, but I did expect 
him to be — what shall I say? — to be 
more like the cartoons ; to be, somehow, 
wilder looking. As I had not expected 
my uncle to look like a civilian, I had 
not expected Colonel Roosevelt to look 
like a conservative banker of Amster- 
dam or The Hague. And that was 
what he made me think of as he sat be- 
hind his desk in one of the editorial of- 
fices of the "Metropolitan Magazine." 
4 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

The only sign there was about him that 
afternoon of the much pictured Rough 
Rider was the broad-brimmed, putty- 
colored hat which he laid upon his desk 
as he came in, and even that was but a 
modified version of the out-and-out 
cowboy hat, such as they wear around 
Medora. 

Though I missed the cartoon cos- 
tume, I was not to be cheated of the 
smile. It met all specifications. As 
the Colonel advanced to greet me he 
showed his hard, white teeth, wrinkled 
his red weather-beaten face, and 
squinted his eyes half shut behind the 
heavy lenses of his spectacles, in sug- 
gestion, as it seemed to me, of a large, 
amiable lion which comes up purring 
gently as though to say : "You need n't 
be afraid. I 've just had luncheon." 

His handshake, too, surprised me. 
5 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

Though his manner is heartily cordial, 
his grip in shaking hands cannot be de- 
scribed as firm. It struck me that he 
had been obliged to shake hands much 
more than he wished to, and that he 
had formed the habit of saving him- 
self by letting the other fellow do the 
gripping. Nor was it the massive raw- 
boned hand I had expected. It is rather 
small, very thick through the palm, and 
— I hesitate to write it — somewhat fat. 
Let me hasten to add, however, that it 
is far from being a weak-looking hand, 
and that, as to color, it is highly satis- 
factory, the back of it being as brown 
as a glove. For the rest, his torso is 
like a barrel, his neck thick, short, and 
full of power, and his hair, as he him- 
self has said, "has always been hke 
rope." 

After I had met him a man asked me 
6 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

if he had aged. I remember that the 
word ''aged," applied to Colonel Roose- 
velt, struck me as bizarre. True, his 
mustache is now quite gray, but he has 
not aged and will not age. He has 
simply ripened, matured. He is fifty- 
seven years old (two years younger 
than President Wilson and one year 
younger than Ex-President Taft), 
looks forty-seven, and evidently feels 
as men of thirty-seven wish they felt. 

It was the day after his Plattsburg 
speech, and I had been there but a mo- 
ment when reporters came to find out 
what he had to say about the criticisms 
of his speech which had been printed in 
the morning papers. The Colonel re- 
mained seated at his desk while he dic- 
tated the first few paragi^aphs of a 
statement which the reporters wrote 
down word for word, but as he warmed 
7 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

to his work he arose and paced slowly 
back and forth, thinking out his re- 
marks very carefully, speaking in a 
measured tone, enunciating with a kind 
of exaggerated distinctness which is al- 
ways characteristic of him, forming 
each syllable elaborately with his mo- 
bile lips, the workings of which cause 
his mustache to gyrate at times in a 
curious manner. All these mannerisms 
are manifested in his most casual con- 
versation, but when he is making a 
"statement" or dictating a letter they 
become extreme. 

When the statement was complete 
Colonel Roosevelt resumed his seat and 
for a moment discussed, informally, 
certain aspects of the Plattsburg mat- 
ter. He did not say that these subse- 
quent utterances were, as the saying 
goes, "not for publication," but the 
8 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

change in his tone and manner made the 
fact so clear that to say so was unnec- 
essary. For the most part he spoke 
gravely, looking up earnestly at the re- 
porters who were standing about his 
desk, their eyes fixed intently upon his 
face. Their physiognomies were, like 
his, exceedingly gi^ave, and the thought 
came to me that the Colonel's facial ex- 
pression was somehow reflected, for the 
moment, upon their features. How- 
ever, it was not until he lapsed briefly 
into irony, turning on, as he did so, that 
highly specialized smile, that I perceived 
how truly those young men reflected 
him. At his smile they all grinned 
open and responsive grins. To watch 
their faces was like watching the faces 
of an audience at a play : when the hero 
was indignant they became indignant; 
when he sneered they sneered ; and when 
9 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

he was amused they seemed almost to 
quiver with rapturous merriment. 

Then, and at other times, I studied 
carefully the Colonel's mode of speech. 
Each syllable leaves his mouth a per- 
fectly formed thing ; his teeth snap shut 
between the syllables, biting them 
apart, and each important, each ac- 
cented syllable is emphasized not 
merely vocally, but also with a sharp 
forward thrust of the head which seems 
to throw the word clattering into the 
air. When he utters the first personal 
pronoun it sounds like "I-ye-e-e-e-," 
with the final "e's" trailing off like the 
end of an echo. 

Colonel Roosevelt feels strongly 
about things and, as we know, expresses 
himself strongly, but it is my belief that 
his indescribably vigorous manner of 
speaking has at times been confused in 
10 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

people's minds with what he has actu- 
ally said. Though his language is 
forcible, it is never "strong" in the 
usual sense of that word as applied 
to langoiage. Regarding strong lan- 
guage, as regarding other things, he 
practises what he preaches. He is him- 
self what he called Admiral Mahan, "a 
Christian gentleman," but as Disraeli 
wrote of some one, "his Christianity is 
muscular." I talked to him on many 
subjects which, had he been a profane 
man, would have elicited profanity, but 
he was not betrayed. Of Mr. Josephus 
Daniels, he remarked, for example: 
"Of course he 's a f right-f ul Secretary!" 
and it sounded terrible enough. Again 
in speaking of another man of whom he 
disapproves he called him "That creat- 
ure V and quite the most awful word I 
have ever heard him apply to any man 
11 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

was the word ''skunk-k-kT applied by 
him in a moment of great irritation. 
Now, of course, if your conception of a 
president, or an ex-president, imphes 
a cold, exalted, supernatural being, half 
man, half god, with a flow of conversa- 
tion that never sounds more colloquial 
than John McCuUough reading Rus- 
kin's "Stones of Venice" — if that is 
your conception of what a president 
should be, why, then you might not be 
pleased with Colonel Roosevelt or his 
language in private conversation. 

Colonel Roosevelt drinks a little 
light wine, and smokes not at all. A 
friend of his explained his abstinence to 
me in this way: "His vitality is such 
that he does n't need the stimulation of 
alcohol and nicotine, as some of the rest 
of us feel we do. And it is the same 
12 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

about swearing: he doesn't need to 
swear, because he can say 'Pacifist' or 
'Woodrow Wilson' or 'William Jen- 
nings Bryan' in tones which must make 
the Recording Angel shudder. But 
the only Roosevelt Dam is the one they 
named for him in Arizona." 

I was reminded of this when, in the 
course of conversation. President Wil- 
son's series of notes to Germany was 
mentioned. 

''Oh, how I 'd have liked to praise 
Wilson if he'd given me the chance!" 
exclaimed Colonel Roosevelt with feel- 
ing. "I 'm not for Roosevelt; I 'm not 
for any man ; I 'm for the United States. 
Every president has a right to time, 
at first, in which to formulate his pol- 
icies. Through the early part of the 
Wilson administration I waited and 
hoped, in spite of a belief that I have 
X3 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

long held that the pedagogic niind is 
generally too theoretical and abstract 
for politics. Even now, if the Presi- 
dent were a business man, and had not 
familiarized himself with history, and 
written history, he might be forgiven. 
But he is a college president and a his- 
torian, and has, by very direct implica- 
tion, criticized Jefferson and Madison 
for some of the very errors of which he 
himself, as President, has been guilty. 
In his 'History of the American Peo- 
ple' he speaks of Jefferson's reduction 
of the army and navy, refers to our 
'amateur' soldiers in the War of 1812, 
and says that 'the war began with a se- 
ries of defeats in the North at once 
ridiculous and disgraceful.' 

"Bryan! Mexico! Daniels! No fleet 
manoeuvers for the first two years! 
'Too proud to fight !' And all these let- 
14^ 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

ters to Germany !" The Colonel had the 
air of snorting his contempt; then he 
added slowly, sardonically: "Of late I 
have come almost to the point of loath- 
ing a bee-?/oi^-ti-ful, ^oZ-ished dic-tionV' 

Colonel Roosevelt knows very well 
that he is severely criticized by many 
people for his attacks upon the adminis- 
tration; that a considerable body of his 
fellow citizens attribute those attacks to 
political motives, while others take the 
point of view that, though he has told 
the truth on vitally important matters, 
he ought to have preserved a dignified 
silence. In this connection I asked him 
if there were precedents for criticism of 
a president by an ex-president. He re- 
plied: 

"John Quincy Adams went to the 
House of Representatives after having 
been president and became the most bit- 
15 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

ter critic and opponent of the Mexican 
and slavery policies of Presidents Ty- 
ler and Polk." Then, with a sarcastic 
smile, he added: "The most striking 
attack of this character I know of was, 
however, made by a president upon an 
ex-president. I refer to the offer of 
twenty-five millions to Colombia by 
Mr. Wilson because of what I did, as 
President, about the Panama Canal." 
These points will, perhaps, be of in- 
terest to those who criticize Colonel 
Roosevelt on the ground that his ful- 
minations are in questionable taste. 
And it may be added that where ques- 
tions of taste are raised, as against the 
welfare of the country, taste cuts but a 
small figure in the Colonel's mind. 
Feeling that he is not responsible for 
the leadership or fate of any party, he 
considers that he can serve the nation 
16 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

best at this time as a fearless critic, a 
critic who can speak freely without hav- 
ing to consider the effect of his words 
in ahenating the German-American, 
the Pacifist, or any other vote. Acting 
along this line he is strongly advocating 
the adoption by the United States of 
the Swiss system of universal military 
training, for the reasons, first, that it 
would practically guarantee the coun- 
try against invasion; second, that it 
would give American young men a 
sense of their individual duty to the 
Government; and, third, that the mod- 
erate amount of mihtary discipline and 
training involved would benefit the 
men of the country morally and physi- 
cally. 

"The people who consider me an op- 
portunist," he remarked, "will, of 
course, say that I 've taken up with pre- 
17 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

paredness merely to feather my own 
nest, although, as every one who will 
take the trouble to find out may ascer- 
tain, I have been shouting preparedness 
at the top of my lungs for thirty-five 
years. Also,*' the Colonel continued, 
*'they will say: 'If Roosevelt believes 
in the Swiss system now, why did n't he 
believe in it when he was president?' 
I '11 tell you why : I did investigate the 
Swiss system years ago, but the need 
of universal military service, and like- 
wise the folly of such treaties as The 
Hague Convention, did not come out 
clearly until this war started — though 
now they should be clear to every one. 
No one should blame the President for 
not having favored universal military 
service when he came into office, but 
certainly he ought to be for it now. 
"Then there are these Jacks who 
18 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

say: *What did Roosevelt do for pre- 
paredness when he was president?' 
They try my patience. I labored to 
get four battleships a year with other 
ships in proportion. Finally I suc- 
ceeded in getting a program of two a 
year. Before I came in, Congress had 
stopped appropriating money for bat- 
tleships. My two-battleship program 
was continued until the Democrats 
came into power in 1910. Then it was 
dropped. When I became president 
the navy was run down. I could only 
get public opinion back of me on one 
thing, the navy or the army, and I se- 
lected the navy because it is our first 
line of defense. When I left ofiice we 
were next to England as a naval power. 
Now we are fourth or fifth. I sent the 
fleet of sixteen battleships around the 
world — a thing no other power ever 
19 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

did, and which foreign naval authorities 
did not think could be done. I have al- 
ways regarded that world cruise as one 
of the best things I ever did for the 
promotion of peace. It is right that 
the people of the United States remem- 
ber the men who work for the navy and 
those who work against it. Those who 
helped me to build up the fleet were 
Lodge of Massachusetts, Clarke of Ar- 
kansas, Beveridge of Indiana, Hop- 
kins of Illinois, Cockrell of Missouri, 
and O. H. Piatt of Connecticut. My 
secretaries of the navy were Long, 
Moody, Morton, Bonaparte, Metcalf, 
and Newberry. Those who were the 
principal opponents of the navy were 
Senators Hale, Tillman, and Perkins. 
Hale was the big fellow. He used 
Tillman. The manipulation of the 
naval committee was such that whatever 
20 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

Mr. Hale's navy yard at Portsmouth 
needed it received and whatever Mr. 
Tilhnan's navy yard (Charleston) 
needed it also received, although both 
navy yards ought to have been closed. 
At that time it would have been useless 
for me to try to get them closed, but 
now, with public sentiment aroused, it 
would be possible, if the secretary of the 
navy would do his duty. But he has 
been opening useless yards instead of 
closing them. 

"As to our little army, I built it up 
and made it twice as efficient. The army 
corps I sent to Cuba under General 
Barry was as far superior to Shafter's 
army, with which I went to Cuba, as 
light is to dark. I fought as hard as 
I could, while I was president, for big 
manceuvering camps, and I did succeed 
in getting a general staff for the army, 
21 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

though I could never get one for the 
navy." 

I asked his opinion as to our duties 
in connection with the European war. 

"I felt very strongly," he said, "that 
this Government should have taken ac- 
tion concerning Belgium on the 28th, 
29th, or 30th of July, but I held my 
tongue. You must remember that it 
was under my administration that the 
United States entered The Hague Con- 
vention. I should never have permit- 
ted such a thing had I not believed we 
acted in good faith. It was clearly our 
duty to protest, but I waited and said 
nothing, thinking that perhaps the 
President wished to assemble a long list 
of atrocities so that the people would 
be behind him in protesting. But 
Dinant followed, and Louvain, and 
Reims, and no protest was made. In- 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

stead we were instructed to be 'neutral 
even in thought' toward those who had 
broken faith with us and with civihza- 
tion. So it went until the Lusitania 
was sunk. If we had acted with 
strength in Mexico, the poor souls who 
went down on the Lusitania would still 
be alive. But by our Mexican per- 
formances we had shown Europe what 
to expect of us." Colonel Roosevelt 
paused for a moment, then, grimly, he 
added: "Haiti is apparently the kind 
of country we can handle now. Our 
conduct of international affairs, so far 
as that vast and powerful nation is con- 
cerned, seems to have been admirable." 

I may say here, as well as at any 
other point, perhaps, that my interview 
with Colonel Roosevelt and my ob- 
servation of him covered several days 
23 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

in both New York and Oyster Bay. 

At Sagamore Hill he is not so much 
the Dutch banker as the American gen- 
tleman in his country home. The place 
is three miles from the station, upon a 
height reached by a long, winding drive 
leading from the highroad. The 
house, which has lawn and trees about 
it, and has a view over Long Island 
Sound, is a very American-looking 
structure of red brick and gray painted 
wood. It is not at all an "imposing" 
residence, although that other word, 
''rambhng," which is so much used in de- 
scribing houses, may with justice be ap- 
plied to it. It is a house which, from 
the outside, does not look nearly so spa- 
cious as it actually is. 

Through the center of it runs a wide, 
dark hall, to the right of which, near 
the front door, is the library, or rather 
24 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

the room which Colonel Roosevelt uses 
as an office, for it is improper to refer 
to any especial room at Sagamore Hill 
as a library, since all are filled with 
books. This room is a small museum. 
There are animal skins upon the floor 
and mounted heads of animals upon the 
walls. Among the pictures on the 
walls are a portrait of Mrs. Roosevelt, 
one of Colonel Roosevelt's father, and 
others of Lincoln, Washington, and 
Daniel Boone. Also there is the bronze 
cougar, by Alexander Proctor, which 
was presented to the colonel by his fa- 
mous "Tennis Cabinet," and a bronze 
cowboy, by Frederic Remington. 

Even more like a museum than the 
library is the great living room which 
has been added, of late years, at the 
end of the hall. It is a very large room 
two stories high, with a trilateral ceil- 
S5 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

ing and wainscoting of wood in a 
pleasing shade of light brown, oiled 
but not polished. Large as this room is, 
and rich as it is in trophies and souve- 
nirs of all sorts, its finest quality is its 
freedom from imposingness. It is not 
in any way magnificent or austere, yet 
it is a very handsome, dignified room, 
with the kind of handsomeness which 
does not smite the eye nor overpower 
the senses, but which, upon the other 
hand, makes the stranger feel welcome 
and at ease, and tells him that he is in 
the home of a prosperous but simple 
and cultivated American family. What 
I am really trying to say is that the 
Roosevelts live comfortably, but with- 
out "side." They do not keep a butler 
or a footman ; their chauffeur is a negro. 
Into this setting the Colonel fits felic- 
itously. At Oyster Bay he usually 
^6 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

wears an olive-drab suit with knicker- 
bockers, and golf stockings, and though 
he is a most hospitable and tactful host, 
one feels that when the guests have 
gone he will welcome the opportunity 
to go tramping off through the woods 
with Mrs. Roosevelt or to take her row- 
ing in the skiff. 

Without Mrs. Roosevelt the house 
at Sagamore Hill would be as imper- 
fect as without the Colonel. She is a 
woman of the greatest charm and tact 
— precisely the kind of woman to be the 
wife of a public man, precisely the kind 
of woman who so seldom is. She makes 
every one who comes to Sagamore Hill 
feel instantly at ease, and she has the 
gracious faculty for seeming to know 
about and be genuinely interested in 
the people whom she meets, instead of 
wishing them to know about and be in- 
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THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

terested in her. More than this, she 
has wit. One day at luncheon the 
Colonel was speaking of the need of uni- 
versal military service, when he touched 
sarcastically upon the song entitled "I 
Did n't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." 
Whereupon Mrs. Roosevelt, whose hus- 
band and four boys would go to war if 
war came, remarked: 

"I did n't raise my boy to be the only 
soldier!" 

While Colonel Roosevelt may not 
have stated publicly what his exact 
course of action with regard to Mexico 
or to the European situation would have 
been were he president, it is generally 
understood by those who know him that 
he believed in sending an army officer of 
the caliber of General Wood to Mex- 
ico to organize the Mexicans themselves 
28 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

for the work of restoring and maintain- 
ing order, as was done by General 
Wood in Cuba. Further, it is known 
that he beheves that a protest against 
the invasion of Belgium should have 
been made by this Government, not 
after the invasion but before; that is, 
when it began to seem probable that 
such a thing would occur. He believes 
that the President of the United States 
had an opportunity to play a part as 
great as that of Lincoln or Washing- 
ton, and that the way to have played it 
would have been to notify the German 
Government that, in the event of a 
violation of Belgian soil, the United 
States would call a posse comitatus of 
nations to intervene by force if need be. 
Colonel Roosevelt regards it as quite 
conceivable that with some one to rally 
them, England and Italy would have 
29 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

immediately signified their willingness 
to join in such a movement, and that 
most of the nations which have remained 
neutral might likewise have given their 
support to so just a cause. By this 
plan Colonel Roosevelt believes that the 
violation of Belgium, with its succeed- 
ing horrors, might actually have been 
prevented. 

I spoke to the Colonel of the impres- 
sion held by many of those who do not 
believe in him, that he is of a belliger- 
ent disposition and that, to use the usual 
expression, he "would have dragged the 
country into war." 

*'I know what they think about me," 
he declared. "Because I stood up for 
the army and navy and for American 
rights, also because of the newspaper 
cartoons of me as a Rough Rider car- 
rying a club or shooting revolvers into 
30 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

the air, also because I speak my mind 
when I think I ought to, and because 
they know I would have taken action 
in regard to Mexico and in regard to 
Belgium — because of these things there 
are many people who say: *That man 
Roosevelt is a bloodthirsty anarchist!' 
These people forget or ignore the fact 
that during the seven and a half years 
in which I was president we never fired 
a shot at a foreign foe, although com- 
plications arose from time to time, and 
although I insisted absolutely upon pro- 
tecting American citizens everywhere, 
as, for example, in the case of Perdi- 
caris, when I demanded Perdicaris alive 
or Raisuli dead. But, although I got 
the country into no wars, they say I am 
warlike. President Wilson, on the 
other hand, is a man of peace. He has 
waged peace with Mexico and Haiti, 
31 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

and lost a lot of men, and he has been 
waging peace with Germany, while 
Germany has been murdering our men, 
women, and children with her subma- 
rines. 

"Now, as a matter of fact — though I 
do not expect these people who picture 
me as bloodthirsty to believe it — I abhor 
war. But where I differ with the paci- 
fists is this: I regard war as a very 
terrible thing, to be avoided by every 
decent means, but I do not regard it as 
the worst conceivable thing in the world. 
I think some things are even more to 
be avoided than war; and these people 
who say I want war are right to this 
extent: Let them rape just one Ameri- 
can woman in Mexico — and they have 
raped many — and I should have action 
inside six hours. There was never any 
question as to whether the American 
S2 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

people would back me or not when I 
was president. They would always 
back me to assert American rights and 
defend American honor. They are the 
same people to-day, but they are dulled, 
momentarily, by a five years' debauch 
of professional pacifism. 

"Every man has a soft and easy side 
to him. I speak now out of the abun- 
dance of my own heart. I 'm a domes- 
tic man. I have always wanted to be 
with Mrs. Roosevelt and my children, 
and now with my grandchildren. I 'm 
not a brawler. I detest war. But if 
war came I 'd have to go, and my four 
boys would go, too, because we have 
ideals in this family. I Ve had a good 
deal from hfe, and I am not afraid to 
die, but any man who is a father ought 
to know whether I want to see my four 
33 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

boys go off to fight. This feehng is so 
strong in me that when I have read in 
the papers that the President has sent 
still another note to Germany, fending 
off trouble for a while, I have to com- 
bat a feeling of relief by thinking of 
what our duty is and of how dreadful it 
would have been for me if men in the 
days of Washington and Lincoln had 
been *too proud to fight.' 

"The average man does not want to 
be disturbed. He doesn't want to be 
called upon to leave his business and 
his family, and do a distinctly unpleas- 
ant duty. That is natural enough. 
Nevertheless, you can appeal to either 
of the two soul sides of that man. If 
you appeal to his deepest sense of duty, 
to all that he has of strength and of 
courage and of high-mindedness, you 
can make him shake off his sloth, his 
34^ 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 



self-indulgence, his short-sightedness, 
or his timidity, and stand up and do, 
and dare, and die at need, just as the 
men of Bunker Hill and Trenton and 
Yorktown and Gettysburg and Shiloh 
did and dared and died. 

"But if, upon the other hand, with ^; 
great rhetorical ingenuity and skill, \ 
you furnish that man with high-sound- 
ing names to cloak ignoble action, or 
ignoble failure to act, then it is so natu- 
ral as to be pardonable in the average 
man to accept the excuse thrust upon 
him and to do the ignoble thing which 
the man who ought to be his leader 
counsels him to do. 

"It is with the people of a nation 
much as with a regiment. There is an 
old saying that there are few bad regi- 
ments but plenty of bad colonels. No 
matter how good a regiment may be, if, 
35 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

in the stress of a great fight, its colonel 
advises each man as a matter of duty 
to do whatever is best for his own com- 
fort and safety, and if the colonel, still 
uttering lofty abstract sentiments, then 
marches to the rear, it may be taken for 
granted that the regiment will follow." 

The anti-Roosevelt reader, wishing 
to take exception to everything having 
to do with Colonel Roosevelt, may per- 
haps take exception to the title of this 
volume. To this reader I wish to say 
that my title is not only temperate 
(mark you, I refrained from making it 
either "The Most Interesting Man in 
the World" or "The Greatest Amer- 
ican") but that I can prove it true. All 
one need do to prove Roosevelt the 
most interesting American, is to ask the 
question; "Well, if he isn't, who is?" 
36 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

In reply to this the anti-Roosevelt man 
will make a half-hearted effort to play 
Edison as a trump card and will there- 
after give up. 

Yet I believe that even those who are 
wilhng to concede to Colonel Roosevelt 
everything in the way of being interest- 
ing, or even everything in the way of 
greatness, do not generally grasp, all 
at one time, the completeness of his ver- 
satility. 

In the course of casual reading I 
have lately happened upon three Roose- 
velt items from curiously assorted 
sources. In the "Century Magazine" 
I read of the visit of an American au- 
thoress to the home of Mistral, the 
Provencal poet, and learned that "a 
heavily inscribed photograph of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt hangs in the hall in full 
view of the bust of Lamartine." 
37 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

In a New York newspaper I read an 
interview with M. Jules Bois, the 
French journahst, author, and poet. 
Said M. Bois: "Theodore Roosevelt is 
perhaps the greatest man in the world. 
To the European he typifies all that is 
essentially American. Abroad he is 
considered the greatest American." 

A day or two later I read that Champ 
Clark had been talking about Roose- 
velt. *'He knows a little more about 
more things than any man in the coun- 
try," declared the Speaker; and at the 
risk of seeming, perhaps, to digress, I 
cannot refrain from adding that Mr. 
Clark, though a Democrat, declared 
further that "Roosevelt is not mealy- 
mouthed." 

But let me point in another way the 
versatility of Roosevelt. Has it ever 
struck you that he combines within 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

himself qualities and attainments which 
actually are not combined in the entire 
population of any city in the United 
States? 

The city which would have in the 
sum of all its people a Roosevelt must 
possess, among its inhabitants, the fol- 
lowing : 

1. A Physical Culture Expert: 
Roosevelt built himself up from a sickly 
child to a man upon whose vigor it is 
needless to comment. 

2. A Historian: Roosevelt began to 
write his "History of the Naval War 
of 1812" while yet a Harvard student. 

3. A Biographer: See his "Oliver 
Cromwell," his own Autobiography, 
and others. 



39 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

4. An Essayist: He has written 
more books than many authors whose 
fame rests upon their writings alone. 
His essays, in particular, are the key 
to his actions. 

5l [d Natural Scientist: As in au- 
thorship, his achievements in this field 
alone are enough to make him a man 
of note. Several leading natural sci- 
entists have said so. 

6. A Big-Game Hunter: His shoot- 
ing, like his vast reading, has been done 
in spite of exceeding nearsightedness. 
He is the most farsighted nearsighted 
man the country has produced. 

7. An Explorer and Discoverer: 
Africa; South America; the River of 
Doubt. 

40 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

8. A Critic: Just listen at any time! 

9. A Former Cowboy: For two 
years he was a rancliman. 

10. Ten or a dozen LL.D/s: He has 
them from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, 
etc. 

11. An Editor: It used to be the 
"Outlook." Now he writes signed edi- 
torials for the "Metropolitan Maga- 
zine." 

12. A Former Member of the State 
Legislature: In his early twenties he 
was minority leader at Albany. 

13. A Practical Reformer: No liv- 
ing man has brought about so many 
real reforms. 

41 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

14^. A Veteran Colonel of Cavalry: 
He says his "one great day" was that 
of San Juan Hill. 

15. A Former Assistant Secretary 
of the Navy: He said then, and long 
before, all the things most of us are just 
finding out about preparedness. 

16. ^ Former Governor: He was 
Governor of New York, Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Navy, and Colonel of the 
Rough Riders all in less than one year. 

17. A Nobel Peace Prize Winner: 
For the Russo-Japanese peace. But 
people call him ''dangerous." 

18. ^ Former Vice-President: They 
did it to get rid of him, but — 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

19. ^ Former President: The 
youngest of all presidents. The presi- 
dent who sent the battle fleet around 
the world, who said "Perdicaris alive or 
Raisuli dead," who concluded the peace 
of Portsmouth, and who started the 
Panama Canal. 

New Haven, Connecticut, comes 
nearest, perhaps, to having all these 
things among its citizens, for it con- 
tains Ex-President Taft, Ex-Gover- 
nor Baldwin, President Hadley and the 
Yale faculty, Harry Whitney, hunter 
and explorer, and the redoubtable 
"Mosey" King. But on other points 
New Haven fails. The only thing it 
has which Roosevelt hasn't is Savin 
Rock — and there are those who think 
there is even a touch of Savin Rock 
about the Colonel. 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

Nor must it be forgotten that there 
are important Roosevelt items not in- 
cluded in my list. As a creator of pop- 
ular and telling phrases, he surpasses 
George Ade and Oliver Herford com- 
bined. He has not only the gift for 
characterizing in a few words, but for 
coining new expressions and revivify- 
ing old ones. 

Some one asks him how he is feel- 
ing. "I 'm feeling as fine as a bull 
moose!" replies the Colonel — and a po- 
litical party has its name. "The big 
stick," "the square deal," "parlor So- 
cialists," "rosewater reformers," "out- 
patients of Bedlam," "race suicide," 
"nature faker," "muckraker," "molly- 
coddle," "Armageddon," "malefactor 
of great wealth," "the strenuous life," 
"undesirable citizens," and, more lately, 
"hyphenated Americans": these expres- 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

sions which I happen to remember, and 
many more which you will think of, 
were either minted or put in general 
circulation by the Colonel. He goes 
hunting and the "Teddy Bear" comes 
into being; he becomes a soldier and 
both the term and type "Rough Rider" 
is made known to us. Everything he 
touches, everything he mentions, is 
made vital through him as through con- 
tact with a dynamo. A friend of mine 
who has known the Colonel a long time 
gives me the following items from 
among things that he has heard him say. 
Once when Roosevelt wished to explain 
the extreme utterances of certain re- 
formers he said: "Every reform has 
a lunatic fringe." Again, in speaking 
of certain very minor European mon- 
archs he termed them "the bush-league 
czars." One man he pronounced "As 
45 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

clean as a hound's tooth," while an- 
other, a certain so-called statesman, 
was "An elderly fuddy-duddy with 
sweetbread brains." Somebody once 
asked him about European kings whom 
he had met. Whereupon the Colonel 

answered: ''X [mentioning a 

monarch] would be president of some 
little peace society if he lived over here, 
but the kaiser would swing his ward." 
At another time when some people, 
failing to appreciate the democracy of 
Roosevelt's instincts, the enormous 
Americanism of the man, said that he 
wished to be a king, he declared to my 
friend: "The people who say that 
haven't seen as many kings as I 
have. Kings are a kind of cross be- 
tween Vice-President and a permanent 
leader of the four hundred." Which 
reminds me, by the way, that of all 
46 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

Roosevelt's positions there is just one 
with which we know he was born; and 
that one, social position in New York, 
is a thing for which, considered by it- 
self, he has nothing but contempt. 

Colonel Roosevelt's sense of humor 
is highly individualized. It seems to 
me that his vast experience of life in its 
larger aspects has caused his sense of 
humor to develop into Gargantuan 
proportions, so that the ordinary httle 
joke-for-a-joke's-sake makes no great 
appeal to him. I believe that he ex- 
pects a joke, as he expects a man, to do 
something, and that he is somewhat in- 
clined to be impatient of what is merely 
amusing, just as he is impatient of 
mere eloquence in speeches and of the 
interruption of his own speeches by ap- 
plause. In speaking, as in writing, he 
does not try for eloquence, but merely 
47 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

to be clear and vigorous. He writes 
slowly and with difficulty, using a pad 
and pencil and making many correc- 
tions. 

His appreciation of situations which 
are grotesque or comic is very rich. 
Time and again, while in the White 
House, he took boyish enjoyment in the 
weirdly assorted gatherings at his 
luncheon table. He has been known to 
entertain, at once, the British ambas- 
sador and the wildest kind of cowboys. 
I doubt that anything ever afforded 
him more amusement than furnishing 
a prize-fighter friend of his (John L. 
Sullivan, I think) with a letter of in- 
troduction to the dignified and sedate 
Governor Hughes of New York, now 
justice of the Supreme Court. Having 
a fine appreciation of both these men. 
Colonel Roosevelt was fascinated with 
48 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

his mental picture of their meeting and 
their conversation, though it is perhaps 
needless to say he gave the letter only 
for good reasons. 

It was characteristic of him that he 
knew them both well, for his taste in 
men, like his taste for affairs, is widely 
assorted. Once I asked him which of 
his various activities he had most en- 
joyed, and he was unable to say. So 
it is with men. He likes prize fighters, 
painters, cowboys, poets, diplomatists, 
hunters, sculptors, soldiers, naturalists, 
football players, novelists, men who can 
tell him about Irish or Norwegian 
sagas, about ancient Greek coins, or 
about almost anything else. It was the 
great sculptor, Saint-Gaudens, who 
spoke to him one day of the beauty of 
the old Greek coins, and it was charac- 
teristic of Roosevelt that he immedi- 
49 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

ately caused new coins — the most beau- 
tiful since those of ancient Greece — to 
be designed and minted. So also, when 
he set his mind to architecture and 
landscape gardening, a fine arts council 
composed of noted men, serving with- 
out pay, came into being, and the new 
pubUc buildings in Washington began 
to be harmoniously designed and 
placed. This fine arts council was, 
however, instinctively resented by the 
pork-barrel senators and congressmen, 
and it was disbanded by Mr. Taft 
shortly after he became president. At 
one hour of the day Roosevelt would be 
talking army reforms with an officer, 
at another jujutsu with a Japanese, or 
he would be writing to some poet whose 
work he had seen and liked. 

And sometimes, when there was need, 
he would provide a government posi- 
50 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

tion for a man whose work was good 
but not remunerative. Along with the 
rest of him there is something of the 
artist, and that is a tribute which can 
be paid with honesty to but few Ameri- 
can presidents. 

Naturally those of us who admire 
him like to call Roosevelt a "typical 
American," because it pleases us to 
think that an exceptional American is 
typical. In so far as he is a type pro- 
duced by the United States he is typi- 
cal ; in so far as that type is common, he 
is not. He has always been the excep- 
tion. A jack-of -all-trades, he is mas- 
ter of many. He rushes in where 
angels fear to tread, but he is no fool. 
He has been called a "man of destiny," 
but destiny has not done all the work, 
any more than God has done all the 
51 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

work for the kaiser. Destiny has not 
helped to make Roosevelt, as much as 
Roosevelt has helped to make destiny — 
or perhaps I should say to make destiny 
make Roosevelt. For Roosevelt is not 
a living proof of what a man may do 
with gifts; he is a living proof of what 
a man may do despite the lack of them. 
Out of a weak child he made a powerful 
man; out of half -blindness he made a 
boxer, an omnivorous reader, a good 
shot; out of a liking for authorship, 
rather than a talent for it, he made a 
distinguished author; out of natural 
force and a feeling for the charm of 
things he made a style not only clear 
and forceful but, at times, charming. 
Out of a voice and a manner never 
meant for oratory he made a speaker. 
Out of a sense of duty he made a 
5a 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

soldier, out of a soldier a governor, out 
of a governor a vice-president, and — 
wonder of wonders — out of a vice-presi- 
dent a president ! 

I asked him once if he thought he had 
genius. 

"Most certainly I have not," he de- 
clared with unhesitating conviction. 
"I 'm no orator, and in writing I 'm 
afraid I 'm not gifted at all, except per- 
haps that I have a good instinct and a 
liking for simplicity and directness. If 
I have anything at all resembling 
genius, it is in the gift for leadership. 
For instance, if we have war, you '11 see 
that young fighting officers of the army 
want to be in my command." Then, 
with a smile and in a manner the frank- 
ness of which was indescribably pleas- 
ing, he declared: "To tell the truth, I 
53 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

like to believe that, by what I have ac- 
complished without great gifts, I may 
be a source of encouragement to Ameri- 
can boys." 

No one knows better than Colonel 
Roosevelt the opinion in which he is 
held by various groups of his fellow 
countrymen. An interesting example 
of this knowledge occurs in his Auto- 
biography, where he tells how his 
successful conclusion of the Russo- 
Japanese peace at Portsmouth made 
him personally unpopular with the peo- 
ple of both Russia and Japan be- 
cause each nation thought that terms 
more favorable to itself might have 
been exacted. He writes: 

*'0f course what I had done in con- 
nection with the Portsmouth peace was 
misunderstood by some good and sin- 
cere people. Just as after the settle- 
54 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 



ment of the coal strike there were per- 
sons who thereupon thought that it was 
in my power, and was my duty, to settle 
all other strikes, so after the peace of 
Portsmouth there were other persons — 
not only Americans, by the way — who 
thought it my duty forthwith to make 
myself a kind of international Meddle- 
some Matty and interfere for peace 
and justice promiscuously over the 
world. Others, with a delightful non 
sequitur, jumped to the conclusion that 
inasmuch as I had helped to bring 
about a beneficent and necessary peace 
I must necessarily have changed my 
mind about war being ever necessary. 
A couple of days after peace was con- 
cluded I wrote to a friend: *Don't you 
be misled by the fact that just at the 
moment men are speaking well of me. 
They will speak ill soon enough. As 
55 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

Loeb remarked to me to-day, some time 
soon I shall have to spank some little 
international brigand, and then all the 
well-meaning idiots will turn and shriek 
that this is inconsistent with what I did 
at the peace conference, whereas in 
reality it will be exactly in line with 
it.' " 

Those who would have the key to 
"My Policies," as the saying used to go 
when Roosevelt was in the White 
House, those who would have the key 
to Roosevelt himself, should read his 
Autobiography. It is rich reading. 
Those who would have a bunch of keys 
should also read his "Presidential Ad- 
dresses and State Papers" and the es- 
says published under the title "Ameri- 
can Ideals." The last-mentioned col- 
lection holds peculiar interest because, 
56 



THE INIOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

though written about twenty years ago, 
when he was- president of the pohce 
board of New York, it is Hterally 
packed with statements which, with the 
change of a word here and there, may 
be directly and heljDfuUy applied to the 
grave conditions which the nation faces 
now. To read these early writings 
without acknowledging the author's 
prophetic understanding is to be an in- 
tellectual contortionist or else wilfully 
to withhold from him the "square deal." 
I do not say that the reader of Roose- 
velt's works must inevitably become a 
Roosevelt man, but I do say that he 
must become a fairer, more intelligent, 
Roosevelt critic. Indeed, I might go 
farther and declare — despite the well- 
known American prerogative to express 
loose opmions on all subjects — that the 
opinion of Roosevelt, good or bad, ex- 
57 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

pressed by a man who has failed to re- 
view Roosevelt's political life as a 
whole, is not worth listening to. I base 
this contention on two facts: First, 
that before I read the Roosevelt works 
my own opinions upon Roosevelt were 
loose and unintelligent. Second, the 
fact that his activities in the last thirty- 
seven years have been so numerous and 
so diversified that the casual citizen for- 
gets the larger part of them. 

In short, I believe that we are still 
too close to Mr. Roosevelt to appreciate 
him fully. Americans lack perspective 
on him, though I believe that Euro- 
peans, regarding him from afar, have 
a better appreciation of the rugged out- 
lines of his character, precisely as those 
who look at a mountain twenty-five or 
fifty miles away can see it clearly, while 
those who live upon its slopes are con- 
58 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

scious only of the little tract immedi- 
ately about them. 

Then there is the other side of Roose- 
velt, the side so many men have seen 
and adored. When he was president 
he never had what is termed "front." 
He never posed like a white marble 
statue of a statesman in the entabla- 
ture of a white marble temple. He 
was, and is, one of us. We call him 
*'T. R.," and he is perhaps the only 
man in the country who is known to us 
all by his initials. We call him 
"Teddy," but we do not call a marble 
statue "Woody." 

Our "Teddy" does not suggest statu- 
ary. He is, perhaps, more like the 
movies — like a moving picture of our- 
selves as we should like to be. He is 
brave, hardy, and adventurous. We 
59 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

should like to be brave, hardy, and ad- 
venturous, too, and we should be if it 
were n't for all kinds of things that in- 
terfered. He knows what he thinks. 
Well, don't we know what we think, 
sometimes? Certainly! He says what 
he thinks. So do we — except when we 
think it might get us into trouble. 
When some one is a liar he calls him one. 
How like us he is ! We 've often 
wanted to do that, too. Yes, Teddy is 
a "regular fellow" — just like us. Of 
course we admire that side of him! 

But then there 's another side. Cer- 
tainly Teddy is all right in his way. 
Yes. He 's all right so long as he 's 
like us. But the trouble with him is 
that he is n't conservative, as we are. 
He is n't quite safe. He 's got a little 
too much — too much this-and-that about 
him. It 's too bad ! We could tell him 
60 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 



what to do, but the trouble is, he 's head- 
strong. He won't hsten. He just 
goes roaring on hke a steam engine in 
pantaloons. 



61 



ROOSEVELT AS A PROPHET 



ROOSEVELT AS A PROPHET 

THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO 

From "History of the Naval War of 181^' 
{written in 1883) 

A miserly economy in preparation may in 
the end involve a lavish outlay of men and 
money which after all comes too late to more 
than partially offset the evils. It was crim- 
inal folly of Jefferson and Madison not to 
give us a force of regulars during the twelve 
years before the struggle. The necessity for 
an eflScient navy is now so evident that only 
our almost incredible shortsightedness pre- 
vents our preparing one. 

TWENTY YEARS AGO 

From "The War Between England and the United 

States" {written in 1895) 

In America in one crisis at least the Peace 
at any Price men had cost the nation more in 
blood and wealth than the political leaders 
65 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

most indifferent to war have ever cost it. 
There never was a better example of the ulti- 
mate evil caused by a timid effort to secure 
peace through the sacrifice of honor and the 
refusal to make preparations for war than 
that afforded by the War of 181^. Nothing 
can atone for the loss of the virile fighting 
virtues. Though war is an evil, an inglori- 
ous or unjustifiable peace is a worse evil. 
Peace is worth nothing unless it comes with 
sword girt on thigh. . . . The people as a 
whole deserved just the administrative weak- 
ness with which they were cursed by their 
rulers. Instead of keeping quiet and making 
preparations, they made no preparations 
and indulged in vainglorious boasting. Con- 
tempt is the emotion of all others which a 
nation should be least willing to arouse ; and 
contempt was aroused by the attitude of 
those Americans who refused to provide an 
adequate navy and declined to put the coun- 
try into shape for self-defense. . . . The vie- I 
tory in any contest will go to the nation that / 
has earned it by thorough preparation. / 



66 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 



NINETEEN YEARS AGO 

From ''The Bachelor of Art," March, 1896 
It is strange, indeed . - . there should 
exist men who actually oppose the build- 
ing of a navy by the United States, nay, even 
more, actually oppose so much as the 
strengthening of the coast defenses, on the 
ground that they prefer to have this country 
too feeble to resent any insult, in order that 
it may owe its safety to the contemptuous 
forbearance which it is hoped this feeble- 
ness will inspire in foreign powers. No 
Tammany alderman, no venal legislator, no 
demagogue or corrupt politician ever strove 
more effectively than these men are striv- 
ing to degrade the nation and to make one 
ashamed of the name of America. 

EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO 
From "Washington's Forgotten Maxim/' first 

delivered as an address in June, 1897 
In this country there is not the slightest 
danger of an over-development of the war- 
like spirit, and there never has been any 
such danger. In all our history there has 
never been a time when preparedness for 
war was any menace to peace. ^ 

67 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

From the same address 
A century has passed since Washington 
wrote : 'To be prepared for war is the most 
effectual means to promote peace.' We pay 
this maxim the lip loyalty we so often pay to 
Washington's words ; but it has never sunk 
deep into our hearts. Indeed, of late years 
many persons have refused it even the poor 
tribute of lip loyalty. 

American Ideals. Address at Naval War 
College, 1897 

If we forget that we can only secure peace 
by being ready and wilHng to fight for it we 
may some day have bitter cause to realize 
that a rich nation which is slothful, timid or 
unwieldly, is an easy prey for any people 
which still retains those most valuable of all 
qualities, the soldierly virtues. We must 
strive to build up those fighting qualities for 
the lack of which in a nation no refinement, 
no culture, no wealth, no material prosperity 
can atone. To see this country at peace 
with foreign nations we will be wise to place 
reliance upon a first class fleet or first class 
battleships rather than on any arbitration 
68 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

treaty which the wit of man can devise. 
Peace is a goddess only when she comes with 
sword girt on thigh. Cowardice in a race 
is the unpardonable sin, and a wilful failure 
to prepare for danger may be as bad as 
cowardice. The timid man who can not fight, 
and the selfish, shortsighted or foolish man 
who will not take the steps that will enable 
him to fight stand on almost the same plane. 
The men who have preached universal peace 
in terms that have prepared for the peace 
which permitted the continuance of the Ar- 
menian butcheries have inflicted a wrong on 
humanity greater than would be inflicted by 
the most reckless and war loving despot. 
Better a thousand times err on the side of 
over-readiness to fight than to err on the side 
of tame submission to injury, or cold blooded 
indifference to the misery of the oppressed. 

SIXTEEN YEARS AGO 

From "Military Preparedness and Unpreparedness" 
"The Century Magazine" November, 1899 

The mistakes, the blunders, and the short- 
comings in the army management during the 
summer of 1898 should be credited mainly 
69 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

not to any one in office in 1898, but to 
the public servants of the people, and there- 
fore to the people themselves, who per- 
mitted the army to rust since the Civil War 
with a wholly faulty administration, and 
with no chance whatever to perfect itself by 
practice, as the navy was perfected. In like 
manner, any trouble that may come upon the 
army, and therefore upon the nation, in the 
next few years, will be due to the failure to 
provide for a thoroughly reorganized regu- 
lar army of adequate size last year ; and for 
this failure the members in the Senate and 
the House who took the lead against increas- 
ing the regular army, and reorganizing it, 
will be primarily responsible. ... In the 
Santiago campaign the army was more than 
once uncomfortably near grave disaster, 
from which it wa^ saved by the remarkable 
fighting qualities of its individual fractions, 
and, above all, by the incompetency of its 
foes. To go against a well-organized, well- 
handled, well-led foreign foe under such con- 
ditions would inevitably have meant failure 
and humiliation. . . . The whole staff sys- 
tem, and much else, should be remodeled. 
70 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

Above all, the army should be practised in 
mass in the actual work of marching and 
camping. Only thus will it be possible to 
train the commanders, the quartermasters, 
the commissaries, the doctors, so that they 
may by actual experience learn to do their 
duties, as naval officers by actual experience 
have learned to do theirs. 

From *'The Strenuous Life," first delivered 
as a speech in Chicago, 1899 

Our army needs complete reorganization 
— not merely enlarging — and the reorganiza- 
tion can only come as the result of legisla- 
tion. A proper general staff should be es- 
tablished. Above all, the army must be 
given the chance to exercise in large bodies. 
Never again should we see, as we saw in the 
Spanish War, major generals in command of 
divisions who had never before commanded 
three companies together in the field. 

From the same speech 
The army and the navy are the sword 
and the shield which the nation must carry if 
she is to do her duty among the nations of 
the earth — if she is not to stand merely as 
the China of the Western Hemisphere. 
71 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO 
From Message to Congress, December, 1901 

The American people must either build and 
maintain an adequate navy or else make up 
their minds definitely to accept a secondary 
position in international affairs. There is 
no surer way of courting disaster than to be 
opulent, aggressive and unarmed. It is nec- 
essary to keep our army at the highest point 
of efficiency. 

From Roosevelt's Message to the -first session of the 
Fifty-seventh Congress, December, 1901 

So far from being -in any way a provoca- 
tion to war, an adequate and highly trained 
navy is the best guarantee against war, the 
cheapest and most effective peace insurance. 
The cost of building and maintaining such a 
navy represents the very lightest premium 
for insuring peace. 

From the same message 
All we want is peace ; and toward this 
end we wish to be able to secure the same re- 
spect for our rights from others which we 
are eager and anxious to extend to their 
rights in return, to insure fair treatment to 
72 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

us commercially, and to guarantee the safety 
of the American people. 

From "National Duties," a speech at the Minnesota 
State Fair, September 2, 1901 

A good many of you are probably ac- 
quainted with the proverb : " 'Speak softly 
and carry a big stick — you will go far.' "... 
Whenever on any point we come in contact 
with a foreign power, I hope we shall al- 
ways strive to speak courteously and re- 
spectfully of that foreign power. Let us 
make it evident that we intend to do justice. 
Then let us make it equally evident that we 
will not tolerate injustice being done to us 
in return. Let us further make it evident 
that we use no words which we are not pre- 
pared to back up with deeds. Such an at- 
titude will be the surest possible guarantee 
of that self-respecting peace, the attainment 
of which is and must ever be the prime aim 
of a self-governing people. 

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO 
From Message to Congress, December, 1902 

Keep the army at the highest point of ef- 
ficiency. Without manoeuvering our army in 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

bodies of some little size it is folly to expect 
that it can be handled to advantage in the 
event of hostilities with any serious foe. Our 
officers and enlisted men must be thoroughly 
trained, especially in marksmanship. There 
is urgent need for a general staff. There 
should be no halt in the work of building up 
the navy, providing every year additional 
fighting craft. In battle the only shots that 
count are the shots that hit. 

TWELVE YEARS AGO 
From a speech made in San Francisco, May I4, 190S 
Remember that after the war has begun 
it is too late to improvise a navy. A naval 
war is two-thirds settled in advance. 

TEN YEARS AGO 
From a speech at Williams College, June 22nd, 1905 

Keep on building and maintaining at the 
highest point of efficiency the United States 
navy, or quit trying to be a big nation. Do 
one or the other. 

EIGHT YEARS AGO 
From a speech at Cairo, III., October, 1907 

Our little army should be trained to the 
highest point. 

74 



THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN 

Let us build up and maintain at the high- 
est point of efficiency the United States navy. 
The best way to parry is to hit — no fight 
can ever be won without hitting — and we can 
hit only by means of the navy. The navy 
must be built and all its training given in 
time of peace. When once war has broken 
out it is too late to do anything. 



IS 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




